
Qass. 



Captain JOHN SMITH 

AND HIS CRITICS. 



A Lecture before the Society for 

Geographical a^° Historical Study 

of Richmond College, 
BY 

CHARLES POINDEXTER, 

Acting Librarian of the Virginia State Library, 



RICHMOND. 

1893. 



3U^ 






PRESSES CF 
HILL PaiNTING COMPANY, 
RICHMOND, VA. 



(.'' 



To 

The Society for Geographical and Historical Study 

of Richmond College, 

before whom this Lecture was delivered, 

and by whose request it 

is printed. 



'Those old credulities, to nature dear. 
Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock 
Of history, stript naked as a rock 

'Mid a dry desert ? 

If Truth, who veiled her face 
With those bright beams yet hid it not, must steer 
Henceforth a humbler course, perplexed and slow; 
One solace yet remains for us who came 
Into this world in daj'-s when story lacked 
Severe research, that in our hearts we know 
How, for exciting youth's heroic flame, 
Assent is power, belief the soul of fact." 



CflPTflIN JOHN SMITH 

AND HIS CRITICS. 



" Fellow, either thou art the cunningest liar that ever 
earned a halter, or else thou hast done a deed the like 
of which never man ventured." — Charles Kingsley. 



It is a trite comment, often verified, that 
the results of an historical crisis generally 
disappoint the predictions as to its probable 
hero, who will stamp on its history the indel- 
ible impress of his personality, linking his 
name and fame with its memory. Seldom 
has this comment been more signally illus- 
trated than in the history of the man and 
events to which we propose some consid- 
eration; for, when Capt. John Smith sailed 
from England with his fellow-colonists, he 
was distinguished by very little of the fame 
which now makes him illustrious, and when 
they arrived in Virginia John Smith was 
actually under arrest, and in such disfavor 
with some of his comrades that he was 
denied his rightful rank and position as a 



6 

member of the Council; which denial was 
the result of differences and feuds during 
the long and perilous voyage across the At- 
lantic. 

It looks like the irony of fate, that of that 
band of Englishmen, men of all sorts, who 
entered our capes on that April day of 1607, 
and then proceeded to organize under instruc- 
tions of the company who sent them over — 
of all that band of men the name of John 
Smith, then in such disgrace as rivalry or 
enmity could put upon him, is yet to-day 
the one name known and remembered; the 
others forgotten or unknown, except to those 
curious in historic details, and recalled or 
referred to mainly, or only, to illustrate 
Smith's history. 

A most striking fact to be noted is this 
immense force of Smith's strength of char- 
acter and his personality, which has so pro- 
jected itself over our early history that the 
common idea seems to credit him with 
planning the colony, bringing it over, and 
settling it. As a matter of fact, he was only 
one of a number of volunteers sent over by 
a trading colonial company, was in Virginia 
only about two and a half years, and became 
governor (so called) only in the last months 
of his stav. 



But how his name and fame did and does 
survive ! with such living force that his deeds 
and character are discussed to-day, when he 
is dead two hundred and fifty years, with a 
zeal and energy not often evoked for a living 
personage. 

The limits of this occasion forbid any elab- 
orate introduction of the subject, and allow 
but brief and scant notice of Smith's early 
history, or of the character and spirit of 
the age in which he lived and acted his 
part — knowledge and note of which latter is 
essentially necessary for any proper under- 
standing of him and his life. Lacking time 
for the setting of this historic back-ground, 
I can only refer you to histories of the period 
and to the numerous works on and studies 
of that age in which our recent literature is 
particularly rich. 

In Charles Kingsley's "Westward, Ho!" 
that great romance of war and adventure, 
Avhose scenes are laid in England just before 
John Smith's time, you may remember that 
marvellous narrative of Salvation Yeo's ad- 
ventures on the Spanish Main, which he 
recounts w^hile subjected to examination by 
Sir Richard Grenville and Amyas Leigh; 
you may remember that, on reaching the 
climax of his story, he is interrupted by Sir 



8 



Eichard's exclamation : " Fellow, either thou 
art the cimningest liar that ever earned a 
halter, or else thou hast done a deed the 
like of which never man ventured." You 
may remember, further, that being checked 
all along by reference to facts well known 
to his hearers. Salvation Yeo vindicates his 
character and truthfulness before the stern 
questioning of so rugged a critic as Sir 
Richard Grenville. 

Your attention is invited to some facts and 
considerations bearing on charges made 
affecting the veracity and character of the 
hero of an adventure in real life — the most 
romantic in American annals — and from 
these facts we shall try to prove that the 
father of Virginia history, in both the actual 
and literary sense, the hero and chronicler 
of this adventure, was not a liar, cunning 
or uncunning. 

It was an age of great and, when occasion 
called for them, of daring deeds, in w^hich 
John Smith was born and lived his life as 
depicted in his works and known to us; a 
life, the natural product of his age and char- 
acteristic of the temper and thoughts of 
thousands of men of his time — 

" The spacious times of great Elizabeth," 



9 "' 



as the poet of our day calls them. How 
spacious and how great, we learn better to 
understand as we know more of the charac- 
ter and deeds of the men who made the age 
renowned. It was an age of great thoughts 
and of great men, some of whom have 
stamped the impress of their genius on the 
world for all time; an age of great enter- 
prises and beginnings of yet greater ones, 
whose developement has made English and 
American history of the last three centuries, 
and changed the destiny and aspects of the 
whole world. 

Among the heroes of that age John Smith 
has been deemed not unworthy of an honor- 
able fame — a distinction generally conceded 
to him by his contemporaries and by succeed- 
ing generations, but questioned and denied 
by the criticism and opinion of some in these 
later modern days. Denied by criticism 
and OPINION, we say; for the adverse judg- 
ment that denounces John Smith as a lying 
braggart cannot be said to be founded on 
any discovery of new facts unknown to pre- 
vious generations, but is an assumption 
based on statements attributed to Smith 
himself, as to matters of fact that have long 
been accepted as familiar trijths of history. 

For any proper understanding of him and 



10 

the questions involved, a brief statement of 
the leading facts of Smith's life is necessary, 
premising, as always essential, a reference to 
the character and spirit of his time as a 
background to the picture of his life and 
exploits. 

Perhaps the character of the age is best 
indicated in brief by noting that when Smith 
was born, Queen Elizabeth was forty-six 
years old, Sir Walter Raleigh twenty-seven. 
Lord Bacon eighteen, Shakspeare fifteen, and 
Ben Jonson -^ve years old ; and that when 
Howard, Drake, and Hawkins fought and 
beat the Spanish armada, John Smith was a 
boy of nine years. 

In this England of Elizabeth, in the year 
1579, John Smith was born of honest, plain 
parents, who probably made an excellent 
living on their Lincolnshire farm. His father 
was a yeoman farmer, able to give his chil- 
dren such education as the neighborhood 
schools afforded, and to leave them some 
property at his death, which occurred when 
John was thirteen years old. About all we 
know of his early years is summed up in the 
introductory paragraphs of his own account 
of himself, in which he tells us that he was 
^' scholar in the two free schools of Louth " 
" and Alford. His parents dying when he " 



11 



" was about thirteen, left him a competent " 
" means, which he, not being capable to " 
" manage, little regarded. His mind even " 
^' then being set upon brave adventures, he " 
" sold his satchel and books and all he had,'' 
" intending secretly to get to sea, but that " 
" his father's death stayed him. About the " 
" age of fifteen he was bound apprentice to " 
" the greatest merchant in all those parts, " 
" but because he would not presently send " 
" him to sea he never saw his master in " 
" eight years after." In other words, he 
took his fate in his own hands and started 
off on a course of adventure in France and 
the Low countries, where he spent the next 
four or five years learning his business of 
soldiering. From the same chapter of his 
memoirs, here is a picture of himself on a 
visit, after this long absence, to his old home 
at Willoughby : '^ Where, after a short time, " 
"being glutted with too much company," 
" wherein he took small delight, he retired " 
'^himself into a little woody pasture, a" 
" good way from any town. Here by a fair " 
"brook he built himself a pavilion of" 
"boughs, where only in his clothes he lay. " 
"His STUDY was Machiavelli's Art of War" 
"and Marcus Aurelius; his exercise a" 
"good horse with his lance and ring." 



12 



Here was an adventurer quite clifFerent from 
the common run of them, whose leisure is 
generally given to fast living and hard drink- 
ing. Fancy him, if you can, this youth of 
twenty, in his Arden-like retreat, studying 
Machiavelli and Marcus Aurelius; and this 
no dilettant, mere literary perusal of those 
classics, but the serious study of a manly 
youth with four years of rough soldiering 
behind him to illustrate and improve the 
wisdom of the lessons learned from those 
great masters, whose teachings stood him 
well in after years, informing and training 
his natural sense, and helping to develope 
qualities that made him a born leader of men. 
Pity that they did not also improve his lit- 
erary style, which is rough to a degree that 
makes him hard reading till we find under 
it the masterly sense and charm of a real 
man. However, he was not training for 
scholarship, and his thoughts were probably 
not much about the graces of literature. 
Quite otherwise, as he proved, when at first 
chance he betook himself again to campaign- 
ing, this time against the Turks, lamenting, 
as he says, to have seen so many Christians 
slaughter one another. The next four years 
were spent in that career of fighting and 
adventure described in his memoirs, the 



13 

account of which will not seem marvellous or 
extravagant when compared with other an- 
nals of that time, though sometimes in our 
day sneered at by closet critics as fantastical. 
His adventures in foreign countries w^ere 
merely the experiences of a soldier learning 
and practicing his profession abroad, because 
of no occasion for its exercise at home. ^N'or 
was his career that of a Swashbuckler, as a 
recent biographer asserts. Men still wore 
armor, and the soldier's sword was not yet 
the almost superfluous appendage it has now 
become. Personal combat, such as he de- 
scribes, was not unusual, and an adventurous 
blade like Smith could find constant use for 
his wits and steel. 

Of the wars in which he was engaged, 
the history is as obscure as that of any 
other contest of semi-barbarians, or of the 
bickerings and fightings nowadays of the 
sam^ regions of southeast Europe, about 
which we care nothing, as w^e read of them 
in the daily papers. Their history has almost 
no possible interest for us, except for the fact 
that this one man was engaged in them. 
What little ever was written about them — 
happily little — is long ago forgotten, swept 
into oblivion, but where it can be traced it 



14 ^... 

vindicates the truth of Smith's narrative by 
establishing his dates and locations. 
: During these campaigns occurred the cele- 
brated combat with the three Turks, effigies 
of whose heads appeared on Smith's crest 
when afterwards he found it useful to adopt 
a coat of arms. The story of the three Turks 
has been the subject of some derision on the 
part of incredulous critics ; as also, the ac- 
count of his captivity and sale into slavery, 
and the charming episode of that Eastern 
woman, with unpronouncable name, whose 
intercession was intended to relieve the bonds 
of his slavery, but, as happens in such cases, 
resulted in consigning him to a harsher mas- 
ter and more rigorous treatment. From this 
captivity he released himself by knocking 
out his master's brains and escaping on his 
horse. 

Smith's narrative of his life and adven- 
tures at that time has been impugned as 
the account of a braggart and boaster. On 
merely literary grounds, the criticism might 
have some validity; for, in the direct, rough 
way of a man ignorant or careless of lite- 
rary style, his narrative does often verge on 
the bombastic, with an egotism that would 
have been avoided by a more polished and 



15 



skillful writer. That is a matter of opin- 
ion, and only mentioned as in one way 
touching the question of his veracity in 
dealing with facts. It is probable, indeed, 
that his narrative of those early adventures 
is often an understatement rather than ex- 
aggeration of facts of common experience 
in a life of adventure and daring. Many ot 
us in our day, survivors, or acquainted with 
the survivors, of a war, know men who tell 
sober truth about adventures that it would 
be difficult to make appear credible if writ- 
ten out in plain prose. It is one of the most 
difficult of arts to describe credibly such 
an experience, especially when writing so 
much about one's self, as Smith necessarily 
did. Nobody makes any claims for him as 
a literary artist. As he says in the preface 
to his History : "Where shall we look to find 
a Julius Csesar whose achievements shine as 
clear in his own commentaries as they did 
in the field?" 

After some ten years of this life of adven- 
ture and wandering, which, if you know 
how to read him, despite the rudeness of his 
style, may prove interesting as any romance, 
he returned to England in 1604, the year 
after Elizabeth's death. He was then twen- 
ty-five years old, with character developed 



16 



and mind trained by long experience in war 
and association with men of all sorts and 
conditions, and with knowledge of lands and 
peoples gained by travel in most of the then 
known world. Young, brave, handsome, in 
these years of war and adventure, he had 
won his way from plain John Smith, private 
in the ranks, to the rank of captain, a title 
representing much higher rank than the 
same grade now. The title, however, car- 
ried not much weight at home among Eng- 
lishmen, who knew little and cared less for 
any distinction or rank gained in foreign 
countries. John Smith was probably less 
well known than some other captains who 
joined the expedition to Virginia. Once 
again in England, he found that the dire 
threats and dangers of Spanish armadas and 
popish conquest were no longer objects of 
apprehension, and that Protestant England 
was eagerly discussing and preparing for the 
great plans and enterprises opening for An- 
glo-Saxon genius, now ready to try its hand, 
among other things, at American coloniza- 
tion. Such a scheme would at once natu- 
rally attract the attention and enlist the 
energy of a man like Smith, doubly qualified 
for undertaking it by the inclination which 
prompted him to adventure and the training 



17 

that had developed qualities needed for such 
enterprise. Having gone through and expe- 
rienced nearly all that the known world 
could offer, why not try his fortunes in that 
unknown world beyond the great waters, 
waiting for English hands and English minds 
to come and develop its boundless possibili- 
ties ? Spain and Spaniards, whom English- 
men hated as Satan incarnate, had reaped 
there boundless wealth which had supplied 
means for efforts that almost conquered Eng- 
land. "Why not compete with them for the 
new world and a share of its riches ? Here 
was field for adventure and an opening for 
his talents. At first he made arrangements 
to join an expedition to South America, 
which failed. Disappointed in this, he joined 
his fortunes to those of the London Virginia 
Company, then planning what proved to be 
the first successful English effort at perma- 
nent colonization in E'orth America. 

It is unnecessary to explain the organiza- 
tion of the Virginia Company, more than to 
say that the expedition for the colony was 
organized on commercial lines. It teas not, 
as it is sometimes assumed, a government 
undertaking, sent out by the Crown, but a 
private enterprise, organized under charter. 
For have we time to dwell on the incidents 



18 

of the voyage, of which the records are 
scant. It was a voyage longer and greater, 
relatively, than one now around the world, 
and more uncertain than a present trip to 
Central Africa. Meagre as are the details 
of the voyage, we yet know that before it 
was over dissensions arose and cliques were 
formed, as was natural among men so sit- 
uated, without recognized head or chief. 
For it was one of the faults of the expedition 
that it was sent with sealed instructions, and 
that the designated officers were not known 
till these instructions were opened after land- 
ing in Virginia. Newport, the captain of 
the. fleet, had no official authority over the 
colonists, but was only the ship captain, 
chartered to bring them over as passengers. 
The officers being not yet known, there was 
no official head or co;itrol ; no discipline but 
that of the captain of the ship, who, with 
a sailor's contempt for landsmen at sea, kept 
such order as he could with so motley a gang 
of passengers. Here were one hundred and 
fifty men cooped up for four months on three 
ships, of which the largest was smaller than 
the coal schooners of to-day. ITothing else, 
not even camp life, so develops character- 
istics, or makes people acquainted with each 
other so quickly, as an ocean voyage. They 



19 



soon know, or fancy that they know, every- 
body and everything about everybody else 
on board. If such be true of passengers on 
a roomy ship, with every appliance for com- 
fort, how much more so of men crowded and 
huddled in little vessels with scant room 
and with roughest of fare and accommoda- 
tions. And this crowd — of such men as 
these were — of all sorts, from the gentlemen 
captains, and the captains who were not 
gentlemen, through all grades, down to the 
anonymous vagabonds classified generically 
as so many Dutchmen. Most of them, 
of course, were rough men, such as were 
needed for the rough work before them. It 
was just such a crowd as would be drummed 
together now for an expedition of unknown 
adventure and peril. Thus jumbled together, 
all the human nature in them was developed. 
Everybody got to know everybody else and 
to find out what was in, and, what is more, 
not in his neighbors and companions, with 
the inevitable result of little cliques and par- 
ties. In such circumstances, so shrewd an 
observer as John Smith, part of whose pro- 
fessional training and business it was to 
judge human character, had doubtless before 
long measured up and taken the calibre, 
physical and mental, of every man on board. 



20 

Of course, bickerings and quarrels arose, as 
seems inevitable when men are thus thrown 
together and cut off from the rest of the 
world. A notable instance of this, in our 
times, is the recent Stanley expedition, pro- 
vided with every appliance and officered be- 
forehand with picked men. Yet, read their 
accounts since their return, and on them try 
to decide which officer least deserves hang- 
ing. In these differences and disputes the 
personality of Smith doubtless asserted itself, 
and drew to him the following — clique it 
you choose — that will always be attached to 
a strong, masterful character. Long before 
the voyage was over, envy or jealousy, or 
what not, had created a combination against 
Smith, charging him with mutiny, and even 
accusing him of intent to make himself king 
of the new country to which they were 
bound. This went so far that there was 
some talk of hanging when they stopped on 
the way at one of the West India islands. 
Smith, however, evidently felt himself strong 
enough in his following to defy and treat 
with contempt the threatened danger, which 
he met in characteristic way; as, writing 
about it afterwards, he says: "A pair of 
gallows was made, but Captain Smith, for 
whom they were intended^ could not bo 



21 

persuaded to use them." The combination 
against him was, however, strong enough to 
put him under arrest and keep him out of 
his rightful place and rank as a member of 
the Council after landing in Virginia. 

At length, after four months' tossing on the 
wintry Atlantic, instead of a five or six weeks' 
voyage as expected on leaving England, the 
colonists arrived inside the Capes, astonished 
and delighted with the beauty of the coun- 
try before their eyes. In this sylvan and 
watered paradise, so enchanting after their 
long and weary voyage, they probably ex- 
pected to find a population gentle and semi- 
civilized, such as the Spaniards had encoun- 
tered in more southern regions, among 
whom they could peaceably settle and estab- 
lish commercial relations. 

But— and mark this as a key to the whole 
subsequent situation— they had scarce put 
foot on shore when they found that they had 
to deal with the original Virginia Indian, 
contesting his native soil, who made a sav- 
age attack on them, wounding two of the 
party, and only driven back by the ship's 
cannon; an attack that proved conclusively, 
to anybody with sense for conclusions, that 
the first, most peremptory of all questions, 
and immediately before them, was one not 



22 



commercial, but purely military , demanding a 
soldier's head and hand. Commercial mat- 
ters must perforce be postponed. Yet, on 
opening their sealed orders, as required to 
do on making land, they found provisions 
for a president and thirteen councillors, and 
an admirable set of commercial instructions, 
with injunction of peace policy toward the 
natives, and with special directions to find 
a route to the South sea — as the Pacific 
ocean was then called — which was supposed 
to be but a short distance across the country. 
How far distant it might be they knew not — 
the art of reckoniog longitude being yet 
unknown — though they knew they were in 
about the latitude reached some years before 
by Drake in the Pacific. 

Under their organization Captain Wing- 
field was appointed President, and the desig- 
nated councillors were duly sworn in, except 
John Smith, who was under arrest ! the man 
of all others who, some of us think, should 
have been in absolute supreme command to 
promote the speedier settlement of the coun- 
try and the earlier development of civiliza- 
tion in this Commonwealth. Thus a com- 
mercial and colonizing expedition found that 
the first thing before them was to effect a 
lodgement in the country in the face of a 



23 

native force, of whose strength they were 
ignorant, but of whose hostile and deter- 
mined character the first experience had 
given decisive example and proof. This, of 
course, was a purely military problem. The 
very place of settlement was determined by 
military reasons that compelled them, in 
selecting a site for the colony, to disobey their 
instructions; which were to settle on high 
ground as far up a river as they could go. 
Instead of selecting such a location they 
stopped at Jamestown, because its peninsula, 
as it then was, was more easily protected 
from attack, and the surrounding water 
afforded means of defence by ships; at 
Jamestown, on the verge of an almost tropi- 
cal forest, and surrounded with marsh and 
swamp reeking with malaria and miasma; 
on James river low-grounds, where, after 
near three centuries cultivation and clearing, 
the unacclimated stranger is even yet not 
safe from chills and ague without a liberal 
supply of quinine and whiskey. 

Though under arrest at the time of land- 
ing at Jamestown — at any rate not yet admit- 
ted to the Council, to which the instructions 
appointed him — Smith accompanied ]^ew- 
port on that first trip up the river, exploring 
as far as the present site of Richmond. ITew- 



24 

port doubtless saw the value of such a man 
in the fighting business probably before them, 
and took him along, arrest or no arrest. 
On return from the trip up the river they 
learned that another proof of the character of 
the situation had been given the day before, 
when four hundred Indians surprised and 
assaulted the fort, and were only beaten ofiT 
by the guns of the ships. This attack was a 
complete surprise, while the colonists were 
planting corn, unarmed and unguarded. In 
the battle one man was killed ; most of the 
Council and thirteen others were wounded. 
Almost daily attacks after this but empha- 
sized the fact that the only and essential 
question before them was one of self-preser- 
vation against the attacks of a determined 
and hostile population. 

Newport sailed on his return to England 
June 22d, leaving one hundred and five colo- 
nists, with thirteen weeks' supply of provi- 
sions, such as they were, and the smallest of 
the ships that had brought them over. Be- 
fore his sailing. Smith was sworn in as a 
member of the Council, June 10th, and it is 
significant that on the next day " articles 
and orders for gentlemen and soldiers were 
upon the court of guard"; that is, military \ 
discipline was established, and recognition ' 



25 



taken of the stern facts of the situation, in 
face of the lurkino^ Indians, who were only 
watching for any chance to attack and ex- 
terminate the colony. Soon after ITew- 
port's departure, under the growing heat of 
summer, the baleful effects of climate and 
river low-grounds and swamps, began to 
develop. "What with insufficient and bad 
provisions, brackish water, and swamp ma- 
laria, the result was that in three months 
half of their number were dead, and the sur- 
vivors were an almost helpless lot of misera- 
ble creatures, shaking with fever, ague, and 
dysentery. It was a frightful, almost des- 
perate condition, in which the Indians were 
kept off only by dread of the white man's 
fire-arms. Dismal as was the prospect before 
the colonists, there was, besides, the omi- 
nous memory of the fate of their countrymen 
at Roanoke, only some twenty years before, 
whose dark tragedy remains to-day one of 
the mysteries of history. The only hope of 
safety seemed to be in the promised return 
of the ships from England. 

Smith charges Wingfield, the president, 
with incompetence, and says he was gene- 
rally hated by all, which seems probable 
and well established from the fact that he 
was soon deposed by his fellow-colonists, 



26 

Eatcliffe being elected in his stead. From 
the accounts that survive, it seems that all 
the exploring and trading with Indians 
for corn was done by Smith; and without 
derogating from or disparaging others, it 
seems abundantly proved that he was lit- 
erally the life of the colony. Without 
his untiring enterprise, supported by daunt- 
less courage, in finding and procuring sup- 
plies from the Indians, impending starvation 
and pestilence would have wrought their 
fatal effects on the colonists, or else reduced 
them to such helpless extremity as would 
render their extermination practicable and 
easy at the hands of the ever hostile Indians. 

Such, imperfectly sketched, was the man, 
and such his circumstances at the end of that 
year of the first settlement on our shores. 
We come now to the matter that is our main 
point of interest, both for itself and as involv- 
ing the question of Smith's character and 
veracity. 

On the 10th of December, Smith started 
on the memorable Chickahominy trip, which 
was undertaken mainly for the purpose of 
finding and securing supplies, while also ex- 
ploring and getting what knowledge he could 
of the utterly unknown region to which the 
river might lead. For this trip he took with 



27 

Mm ten or twelve men, which was, of course, 
allowed hy the President and Council; for it 
is to be remembered that at this time Smith 
was not President or Governor, but only a 
member of Council. Entering the mouth of 
the Chickahominy river ten or fifteen miles 
above Jamestown, he there left the barge, 
with seven men, under orders not to go ashore, 
but to watch for Indians. With two other 
men and an Indian guide he continued the 
ascent of the river in a canoe. Ascending 
as far as practicable in his boat, he went 
ashore, left his two companions with the 
boat, himself with the Indian advancing up 
the river bank or into the forest. Suddenly 
he was attacked by a band of Indians, and 
was captured. Caj^tured! a prisoner in the 
hands of the original red American Indian, 
and not tomahawked on the spot ! because, 
from all we know of Indian character and 
methods— on??/ because— reserved for torture 
or other solemn execution. Captured! and 
not slain on the spot ! but carried around for 
four or five weeks through difiterent tribes and 
villages, and then, without ransom or ex- 
change, voluntarily released and sent back to 
. Jamestown aUve! which is the main fact, and 
the most marvellous and improbable— but for 
its indisputable truth— in his whole career ; a 



28 



fact more marvellous than any story of res- 
cue by Pocahontas, or by any other means ; 
and, we may say, a fact inexph cable and im- 
possible without some such means of deliv- 
erance from Indian vengeance, whose laws 
are well known to us. 

Of three other men captured at the same 
time, two were slain on the spot; the other 
was tortured and burned after the usual In- 
dian fashion. I emphasize this fact of return 
alive, because, aside from and more than any 
story, true or false, of means of deliverance, 
it is the marvellous feature of the whole 
story, not questioned or disputed by any- 
body. 

So far, including the safe return to James- 
town, the facts are undisputed. The world 
for generations has known the story of that 
rescue and deliverance ; how, when Smith 
was taking, as he thought, his last look at 
this world, that Indian maid, with swift feet 
and beating heart, rushed amid the throng 
of dusky warriors, stayed the clubs upraised 
to beat out his brains, and at the risk of her 
own life saved his. 

That story is told in Smith's own words, 
in his own authentic book, published by him- 
self. But now come the cavils of critics, who, 
in denying the Pocahontas rescue, dispute a 



29 

simple, probably only possible, explanation 
of the main fact, infinitely more marvellous 
and improbable, and tell ns that the Poca- 
hontas story is a fiction, invented sixteen 
years after the event; thereby raising the 
question and making the charge that Smith 
is a gasconading braggart and liar — for that 
is what the cavils mean and amount to. The 
charge has been so often repeated of late 
years, and on such seemingly respectable 
authority, that many of us have had misgiv- 
ings and fears that it might prove to be well 
founded, and result in waking us from a 
fool's dream of heroism and devotion, with 
which we had decorated our history ; into 
belief of which we and the generations be- 
fore us had been beguiled by a braggart's 
vanity. The grave seriousness, to say nothing 
of the occasional sportive wit, with which 
the charge was and is made, the learning by 
which it is supported, seemed to justify the 
apprehension that '' the legend must go," as 
expressed in one of the latest utterances con- 
cerning it. 

We may be glad to find some reasons en- 
titling us to have our opinion and retain our 
belief about a matter of some interest to us, 
and of some value in our history. 

The charge is founded on statements in 



30 



a book attributed to and bearing Smith's 
name, which was, we may almost say, dis- 
covered not many years ago; brought to 
light by the zeal that of late years has so 
diligently ransacked ancient records and 
books for everything bearing on our earlier 
American history. This little book, the so- 
called *' Relation of Virginia," is the ear- 
liest known published work relating to the 
settlement at Jamestown, having been printed 
in London in 1608 — the year of the captivity. 
Among other things, it contains a version 
of Smith's captivity so different from the 
account published some years later in his 
History as to cast the gravest suspicion on 
one of the two narratives, which are utterly 
inconsistent — in effect contradictory. If one 
is true, the other is false. 

The critics insist that the account in the 
earlier " Relation " must be accepted as the 
true and credible story, because written just 
after the captivity, when the events were re- 
cent and fresh in mind ; and charge that the 
story of rescue by Pocahontas as told in the 
History, so familiar to us and generally re- 
ceived, is an invention — " embellishment," 
they call it — prompted by vanity and by 
Smith's fondness for making a hero of him- 
self. Let us look into the credibility of the 



31 

"Eelation," and see what is Smith's respon- 
sibility. 

There are three books on Virginia bearing 
Smith's name : The " Relation," published 
1608; the "Map with Descriptions," &c., 
published 1612, and the '^ History of Vir- 
ginia," published 1624. With only the first 
and the last named — the " Relation " and the 
" History " — we have now to do as relating to 
the Smith captivity, and bearing on the ques- 
tion of his credibility and veracity. 

The so-called " Relation " is a small pam- 
phlet, of less than forty pages, so rare and 
obscure, so lost in oblivion, that it may be 
said to have been practically unknown till 
unearthed and brought to light in recent 
years. In 1866 it was reprinted in Boston 
with elaborate introduction and notes by Mr. 
Charles Deane, a I^ew England scholar and 
writer. In his notes to this edition Mr. 
Deane discovers the discrepancies between 
the narratives of the "Relation" and the 
" History," and grounds the charges against 
Smith's veracity. 

This " Relation " was originally, in 1608, 
edited and published in London, by one J. 
H., whoever he was; for nobody knows. It 
purported to be, and probably is, a version 
of a letter from Virginia by Smith to a friend 



32 



in England, though the question of author- 
ship might be contested. The unknown 
editor, J. H., fortunately wrote a preface to 
his publication, from which we know that, 
as printed by him, it is certainly not the letter 
as originally written. In this preface it is an- 
nounced that, " Somewhat more was by him 
the author written, which being as I thought 
fit to be private, I would not adventure to 
make public." The case as against Smith 
might be rested just here, on the reasonable 
ground that the omitted or suppressed parts 
of the letter, if really his, may have been 
statements that would make the narrative 
entirely or substantially consistent with the 
account published by him in later years, for 
which he is responsible. For you cannot 
hold a man responsible for statements attri- 
buted to him in a publication acknowledged 
to be garbled, as against his own genuine 
and authentic, but different, statement about 
the same transaction ; and certainly not 
when the first statement or publication was 
utterly unauthorized, and never acknowl- 
edged by him, as we shall see is the case 
here. Unless, indeed, he is proven to be so 
unreliable that his authentic statements can- 
not be accepted, or that they are inconsistent 
with well-known facts; but we do not now 



33 

insist ou this view of the case, especially as 
the first edition of the letter was printed 
without the preface referred to, published 
without any explanation, and without any 
name of author on the title-page. It must be 
borne in mind that the letter, if Smith's, was 
printed without his knowledge or consent, 
he being at the time in Virginia, three thou- 
sand miles away, and that the editor and 
publisher of it acknowledges an unauthorized 
and even surreptitious possession and hand- 
ling of a private letter, when he says, in his 
preface : " Happening upon this relation by 
chance, as I take it, at second or third hand, 
I thought good to publish it." 

The preface, as a whole, is a curious exam- 
ple of the worst style of its day, a mixture of 
the then fashionable conceits preval ent among 
euphuistic wits and witlings. From its open- 
ing sentences of poor stage-player illustrations 
to its closing words of affected piety and zeal 
for religion, it is tainted with affectations that 
arouse suspicion of the genuineness of the 
work it heralds to the world of courtly sin- 
ners and puritan saints, who might be inter- 
ested, or induced to become interested, in 
the novel enterprise described and advocated 
in its pages. 

So much, in brief, for the character of the 



34 



preface. As to the *' Relation " itself, it be- 
gins abruptly with statements about making 
land and the arrival at Jamestown, nomina- 
ting the Council, and electing the President ; 
all of which is disposed of in less that twenty 
lines. Then follows, with some detail, an 
account of the exploring trip up the river as 
far as the present site of Richmond. With 
the rest of the narrative, describing the con- 
dition of things at Jamestown during that 
summer, and Smith's expeditions for sup- 
plies, we have not now to do, till it comes to 
the account of his capture by the Indians. 
So far the " Relation " agrees mainly with 
Smith's narrative in his later " History." 
The point of interest to us now is its version 
of the captivity as being so much at variance 
with Smith's account of that experience, pub- 
lished in his " History " sixteen years later. 
This variation in the two books is the ground 
of the critics' charge that the later narrative — 
describing the rescue by Pocahontas — is fic- 
tion and romance, invented by Smith to 
embellish his story and magnify his exploits. 
This requires some brief recital of the " Rela- 
tion's" narrative. 

After describing the trip up the Chicka- 
hominy river, the surprise and capture by the 
Indians, the "Relation" proceeds with the 



35 

statement that the Indians "requited him 
with abundant food and kindly speeches," 
and that, while he momentarily expected exe- 
cution, they yet " used him with all the kind- 
ness they could devise to content him and 
disarm his fears." It goes on to tell how 
they fed him every day with more venison 
than ten men could eat, and how "their 
longer acquaintance but increased their bet- 
ter afiection;" and how he amused and en- 
tertained his captors by descriptions of every- 
thing he could make them understand about 
civilized ways and beliefs. It then proceeds 
with an account of their carrying him around 
through the villages, and of his reception by 
Powhatan, who welcomed him with kindly 
words and abundance of savage hospitality, 
assuring him of his friendship, and of release 
within four days. With this assurance of 
friendship, Powhatan invited him to forsake 
Jamestown and come to live with him, prom- 
ising " to give me corn, venison, or what I 
wanted to feed us ; we should make hatchets 
and copper for him, and none should disturb 
us. This request I promised to perform; 
and thus having, with all the kindness he 
could devise, sought to content me, he sent 
me home." 

Such, substantially, is this " Kelation's " 



36 

account of a white man's experience as a 
prisoner in the hands of the original Vir- 
ginia Indians, who had shown most deter- 
mined and deadly hostility against the Eng- 
lish from the first day of their landing on the 
shore of Chesapeake bay. After the fight 
and capture, there is hardl}^ any suggestion 
of mortal peril, and almost the only intima- 
tion of danger and fear is when carried to 
to the spot where Robinson, one of his com- 
panions, lay slain, it says : " I expected 
when they would execute me " ; and again 
at Powhatan's village : " So fat they fed me 
that I much doubted they intended to sac- 
rifice me." 

There is not one word about beinsc draoco:ed 
out for execution, or about any rescue by 
Pocahontas, whose name is not even men- 
tioned. On the contrary, it is a narrative of 
a pic-nic trip among friendly natives of the 
country, a winter idyl of Indian life. And 
what is the reason or consideration for this 
exceptional, this unparalleled, clemency of 
these Indians to their prisoner ? Why, after 
killing his captured companions, did they 
spare his life and send him home to their ene- 
mies unharmed and without ransom or con- 
sideration? Why such friendly conduct to 
the man whom they probably considered the 



37 

head-devil of the white-faced intruders, come 
to occupy their lands and drive them from 
their homes ? To these questions, naturally 
arising after reading such a narrative, we 
seek in vain for answer. 

This '' Relation " gives absolutely not one 
word of such reason or explanation ; nor does 
it attempt any solution of the enigma pre- 
sented by its version of an unparalleled expe- 
rience, but leaves the undoubted fact of 
Smith's returning alive involved in a mystery 
without any hint or suggestion of explana- 
tion. 

It needs not the wisdom of editors and 
critics to tell us that if this thing be true — if 
this "Relation" be an authentic and credible 
account of Smith's release from captivity — 
then, necessarily, the story of the intended 
execution and the rescue by Pocahontas, as 
told in the later " History," is mere fiction 
and invention. 

But doesn't anybody who ever read a 
chapter of American Indian history know 
that this account in this " Relation " is not 
true; that it is palpably false, contradicted 
by all the circumstances of the case, and con- 
tradicted by all our knowledge of Indian 
character and methods, derived from three 
centuries experience with them ? Just think 



38 



of it! Captured red-handed in desperate 
fight, after slaying three of the enemy before 
he threw away his arms and surrendered 
himself; a helpless prisoner in the hands of a 
deadly foe, whose first law is revenge, and 
whose religion it is to kill his enemy; and 
who, disdaining as weakness any sentiment 
of pity or mercy, either tomahawks and 
scalps on the spot, or else reserves his pris- 
oner for torture at the stake, with every de- 
vice of savage cruelty. Yet we are told that 
the aboriginal Indian takes this prisoner, his 
deadly enemy, invading his country and 
rights, carries him on a four weeks' jaunt 
through his villages, gives him friendly en- 
tertainment, and sends him home unran- 
somed and with scalp untouched; and all this 
without any reason or explanation assigned 
for such an astonishing statement. Such a 
falsehood carries its own refutation in its very 
absurdity, and is a hundred fold more incred- 
ible than any story of rescue by Pocahontas. 
As the narrative stands in that " Relation " 
it could not be believed on John Smith's own 
authority. But no jot of responsibility can 
attach to Smith for it or its publication, as 
will be readily shown by recital of known 
facts about the book. 

So much for the contents of the book. 



39 

"What"' is its history? A brief review will 
show that it is as suspicious in character as 
its account of that captivity is improbable 
and false. There were at least three editions 
of the little pamphlet. As said before, the 
original editor and publisher fortunately 
wrote a preface to one of the editions, in 
which, among other things more or less curi- 
ous and suspicious, he undertakes to explain 
and apologize for matters that certainly need 
explanation even more than he has given. 
The three or more editions were successively 
issued with three different title-pages, with 
three various ascriptions of authorship. The 
first — most probably the first — ascribes the 
book to *'A gentleman of the Colony " — no 
name being given. The second title-page 
ascribes it to " Thomas Watson, gentleman 
of the Colony " ; while in the third title it is 
ascribed to '' Capt. John Smith, Coronel of 
the Colony." The first two editions were 
issued without any preface. To the third 
edition, ascribed to Smith, the skulking edi- 
tor and peddler of another man's private let- 
ter — hiding his own name under initials 

Note.— This title "Coronel" is suspicious, and 
should discredit the book. There was no such office. 
Smith was known and designated only as "Captain," 
and was only member of Council. 



40 

probably false — prints the preface, explain- 
ing and excusing, among other things, that 
" the chief error was that (in previous issues) 
"• for want of knowledge of the writer some 
" were printed under the name of Watson, 
" by whose occasion he knows not, unless it 
" were the overrashness or mistaking of the 
" workmen (printers)." As if, in that day 
of strictly licensed presses, when the printer's 
ears might be the penalty for such a blunder, 
he would yet dare to put on the title-page a 
name not given him by the responsible au- 
thor or editor for whom he was printing. 

After this apology or explanation of the 
Watson name on the title-page of previous 
issues, the editor goes on to say that he has 
since learned that the said discourse, the 
'' Relation," was written by " Captain Smith, 
one of the Council in Virginia," and then 
adds the fact that he had taken the liberty 
to suppress parts of the letter. On the state- 
ments of the editor himself, we might contest 
the question of authorship, and deny in toto 
any responsibility of Smith for any part of 
the performance. Such is the ground taken 
by J. Paine Collier, a high authority in Eng- 
lish bibliography, who believes that Watson 
was the author of the tract. It is probable, 
however, that the "Relation" is mainly 



41 

I Smith's letter perverted and distorted by 
this editor, J. H., for a purpose, of which 
we may fairly conjecture. 

It is not incumbent on us to explain the 
genesis or motive of this fraudulent little 
pamphlet, which, as to its account of Smith's 
captivity, needs no further refutation than 
shown by its intrinsic falsehood. But, 
doesn't it look like a stock-jobbing trick to 
boom the Virginia Company's shares ? Look 
at the time of its issue, just after the second 
return of the ships from Virginia without the 
expected gold and silver, or anything else 
that promised immediate profit to stockhold- 
ers. Despite the Company's orders against 
letters bearing unfavorable news or reports 
from the Colony, ugly rumors were probably 
afloat about the hostility of the natives and 
the precarious state of the colonists. Unless 
something can be done to counteract these 
reports and put a better phase on the matter, 
the stock represents a bad speculation, and 
there will be small chance of inducing fur- 
ther emigration to a county where a man 
risks being scalped if he ventures outside the 
palisades of Jamestown. To contradict this 
impression, and to show that the country 
was not necessarily so unsafe for a white man, 
this unknown editor, the initialed J. H., 



42 

takes a private letter of Smith's, or some- 
body else, which somehow or other had got- 
ten in his hands, and by suppressions, and 
perhaps some forgeries not worse than sup- 
pressions, by omission of anything suggest- 
ing mortal risk or danger — by such means 
as these, not yet forgotten by skillful mani- 
pulators of stock markets, the clever fellow 
pictures a state of things very different, we 
may be sure, from the original account of 
the letter itself, and represents the American 
Indian as disposed to be friendly and amiable 
to the foreign stranger, even when captured 
in desperate fight. 

Such a version, seemingly authentic, from 
" a gentleman of the Colony," or, better yet, 
as in the last edition, trom " Capt. John 
Smith, Coronel of the Colony," might easily 
gain credit in England, ignorant at that time 
of Indian character, where it was designed 
to afiect public opinion. At any rate, it 
would take at least &ve or six months for 
authentic contradiction or comment to come 
from Smith, or anybody else, on the other 
side of the Atlantic ; while ^yq or six weeks, 
or less, was all the time needed if the scheme 
proved successful, as it probably did, in keep- 
ing up the value of the Company's stock and 
enabling the successful operator to unload. 



43 

The stock market had its tricks then as 
well as to-day, and some of the cleverest men 
in England were in the business. This stock- 
jobbing suggestion is only a theory, but it 
fits the case, and may do till better explana- 
tion appears. At any rate, it may explain 
why, having served its purpose, the " Rela- 
tion " was lost in oblivion, only to reappear in 
our day, when rarities, however worthless in- 
trinsically, are eagerly sought and so valued 
by bibliomaniacs and collectors. Deane, its 
modern editor, speaks of it as one of the rarest 
of early Americana, as it is. 

To sum up the matter, this " Eelation's " 
" account of Smith's captivity is false on the 
face of it, contradicted by all known facts of 
Indian character and methods, and utterly 
inconsistent with all the circumstances of the 
case. And it is a fraud, virtually confessed 
in its preface, which admits suppressions— 
that is, garbling — of a private letter. 

The critics may pin their faith to it, but 
they cannot fasten to Smith any responsi- 
bility for somebody else's perversions and 
falsehoods. He utterly ignored it when com- 
piling his "History," in which are incor- 
porated his own previous writings and the 
writings of others on Virginia. When on 
such authority as this " Relation " they chal- 



44 

lenge our belief and ask us to discredit 
Smith's authentic statement as to the inci- 
dents of that captivity, we reply in words 
that his great contemporary puts in the 
mouth of his Hamlet : 'f I'll take the ghost's 
word for a thousand pounds.'^ 

If the Pocahontas rescue is not true, then 
the question arises, how in the world did 
Smith escape death, of which no other expla- 
nation is yet oflered ; and next, how account 
for Pocahontas' frequent and familiar visits 
to Jamestown, and her repeated services, 
even at risk of her life, for the safety of the 
colonists, until Smith's return to England. 
Why the cessation of her visits after Smith's 
departure for England, and why a dozen 
other undisputed facts, easily and naturally 
explained by the rescue, but utterly incohe- 
rent, not to say impossible, on denial of that 
tact, which is the explanation and solution of 
so many others. 

Let us turn for a moment to Smith's own 
account of the rescue, which supplies an ex- 
planation of his escape from death at once 
sufficient and natural, though extraordinary. 
His story of rescue is so consistent with, and 
explanatory of, subsequent well-known, un- 
disputed facts, that its denial makes these 
facts simply unintelligible and absurd, and 



45 

destroys the coherency of our early history, 
leaving gaps utterly inexplicable. 

We followed him, in the " Relation's " ac- 
count, up the Chickahominy river to the 
moment of his landing and capture. The 
narrative of the " History " proceeds with 
an account of the sudden surprise at the 
flight of Indian arrows that wounded him, 
and tells how he met the attack, staying the 
savage onset as he bound to his arm the In- 
dian guide, using him as a shield between 
himself and the lurking foe ; of the desperate 
fight, as long as fighting was possible, in which 
he killed three of the enemy. Wounded, 
and retreating with face to the foe, making 
his way backwards, he sank in the Chicka- 
hominy marsh; the dread of his fire-arms 
keeping them at bay, till near dead with the 
midwinter cold of that icy mud-bath, he 
threw away his arms and surrendered, trust- 
ing, perhaps, to hopes of mercy, but more to 
the wit and address that had brought him 
safe through so many dangers; surrendered, 
but expecting the next instant to feel an In- 
dian tomahawk crashing through his brain. 
Think of the man's dauntless courage and 
marvellous address, who, when he found to 
his surprise that he was not to be killed on 
the spot, despite his scant knowledge of the 



46 

savage language, yet succeeded in beguiling 
his enemy into an interest that at least de- 
ferred his fate, and through the simple means 
of arousing the savage curiosity, amused 
them with the play of the compass needle 
and such discourse as he could make them 
understand. The ordinary man would at 
once have given up in despair, and awaited, 
with what stolid pride he could summon, the 
seemingly inevitable fate, or else excited the 
savage contempt by idle appeals for mercy ; 
but this heroic soul asserted itself when Smith 
demanded to be carried to their chief, as 
claiming equality with their best, and thereby 
implying threat of royal revenge for harm 
inflicted on such an equal. 

If John Smith were the braggart, as al- 
leged, he might well boast of the daring and 
successful ingenuity by which he cheated the 
Indian out of instant vengeance and saved 
his scalp untouched ; but of the arts he used, 
of the cunning beguiling by which he won 
mastery of their savage minds, he says little, 
and his narrative is mainly occupied, not 
with what he said and did, but with notices 
of Indian habits and ways, and observations 
on the country, and how they carried him 
round from village to village, till, arriving 
at Powhatan's habitation, that council was 



47 

held which delivered the sentence for which — 
and only for ivhich — his life had been spared 
from the first hour of capture. 

1^0 high-wrought rhetoric could equal 
Smith's description of that scene, when in 
simple and graphic words he says: "But 
" the conclusion was, two great stones were " 
" brought before Powhatan ; then as many " 
*' as could laid hand on him, dragged him to " 
" them, and thereon laid his head, and " 
" being ready with their clubs to beat out " 
" his brains, Pocahontas, the King's dear- " 
" est daughter, when no entreaty could pre- " 
" vail, got his head in her arms, and laid " 
" her own upon his to save him from death." 

And nothing else could have saved him ; and 
that, and that only, is how and why John 
Smith returned alive to Jamestown. A 
woman's pity ! Was it a savage girl's love ? 
"We do not say, but if so, it was a love not 
dishonoring to her and not dishonored by 
him. She had never before seen such a 
man, of Godlike power, armed with the thun- 
der and lightning of heaven, as the Indians 
believed, and of prowess and bearing that 
more than realized the barbarian ideal of 
heroism. 

A clever writer of the day, whose life of 
Smith is a piece of work done to order to 






48 

supply a facetious treatment of the subject, 
opens his first chapter with a half-sneering 
remark about the good fortune of a hero 
who links his name romantically with that 
of a woman. Other and baser pens have in- 
dulged in slurs against Pocahontas' good 
name, foundhig their inuendos on words 
used by one of the old chroniclers, which 
have now their ancient meaning no more 
than Smith's talk about the " mountains " 
which he found in Eastern Viro-inia. 

We can only remark in passing that no ) 
woman's reputation has suffered from asso- 
; ciation in his writings with Smith's name. ^ 
He always speaks of the women whose names 
occur in his works, with the loyalty and court- i 
esy of a gentleman. J 

The argument of the critics, founded on 
the silence of the "Relation" as to the Poca- 
hontas rescue, seems to be fortified by the 
fact that no contemporaneous letter or writ- 
ing from the colony refers to the rescue. 
This looks suspicious, but a careful review 
of the situation at Jamestown suggests sev- 
eral reasons why a prudent man, who had to 
think for others as well as himself, should be 
reticent about the details of that adventure. 
For these reasons, it is indeed very doubtful 
whether on his return he told the details of 



49 



that rescue, except, perhaps, to the very few 
in whom he could trust, and on whose dis- 
cretion he could rely. Remember the well- 
known fact of the desperate condition of 
affairs at Jamestown, where demoralization 
was so utter that some of the leaders were 
planning escape on the one small ship left 
there by N"ewport; landsmen as they were, 
unskilled in navigation, they were willing to 
risk the fearful dangers of an Atlantic voy- 
age to escape the seemingly impending fate. 
In such desperate straits, all discipline and 
control evanished, cowardice and treason 
assert their sway in baser natures, prompting 
them to embrace any means of escape for 
themselves. Smith knew, as well as we 
know now, that there were men at James- 
town who would desert to the Indians on 
any expectation or hope of making terms 
with the warriors and finding favor with 
Indian women. Why should he encourage 
any such expectation and hope by proclaim- 
ing that he owed his escape to the favor of 
an Indian woman? The announcement of 
such a fact would have encouraged the hope 
in would-be deserters that they might find 
like favor for themselves, while exchanging 
the miseries of what looked like a desperate 
situation at Jamestown for the plenty and 



60 



ease of the Indian villages, only ten or twelve 
miles away across the Peninsula. The effect 
of the announcement would have been tan- 
tamount to putting a premium on desertion 
at a time when every man was needed for 
defense against an Indian attack that might 
come any day. If this sounds like a harsh 
stricture against some of our first settlers, it 
must be remembered that there were all 
sorts of men in that expedition, some of them 
reckless adventurers, and that, in the absence 
of proper discipline, it looked very much like 
a case of every man for himself. As a mat- 
ter of fact, some of them did soon after 
desert to the Indians, and abetted their plots 
against the whites. 

Another reason, equally potent for silence, 
was the fact that the charge had been made, 
and was repeatedly urged, that Smith was 
seeking to conciliate the Indians and plotting 
to confirm his influence over them with a 
view of making himself king of the country. 
This accusation went so far as to charge him 
with intent to murder the Council as one step 
in furthering his ambitious designs. The 
zeal of factious enemies would have inter- 
preted his rescue from death by an Indian 
princess as proof confirmatory of that charge, 
and proclaimed it as evidence of an intended 



61 

alliance with the king of the country, or as 
opening the way for such alliance by mar- 
riage with his daughter; which charge was 
afterwards actually made. "Why should he 
put into the hand of an en emy such a club 
to be used against himself? Or again, and 
more than these reasons, would the story 
have been credited at the time and under 
circumstances of such flagrant hostility as 
was familiar to every man at Jamestown? 
The marvellous fact was that Smith had 
escaped death. Any explanation attribu- 
ting that escape to a woman's pity or favor 
might have been received with incredulous 
jeers at a braggart's romancing, unless sub- 
stantiated by undoubted evidence of wit- 
nesses of the fact. 

When that story was publicly told, there 
was and had been abundant opportunity for 
such evidence to support it — ^yea, even from 
Pocahontas herself. 

We cannot here follow the history of Poca- 
hontas, meagre as are the details known to 
us, but it is certain that six years after the 
rescue she married the Englishman John 
Rolfe. It is equally certain that two years 
later, in 1616, she was in England with her 
husband and child; on which occasion Smith 
addressed a letter to the Queen, commending 



52 



Pocahontas to Her Majesty's consideration 
on the ground, among other things, that she 
had hazarded the beating out her own brains 
to save his, with other instances of risking 
her life on behalf of the colonists. 

To vindicate Smith's veracity and credi- 
bility, it is necessary to trace the publication 
of the story of rescue by Pocahontas. It is 
found that the story was published in its 
appropriate time and appropriate place, and 
could hardly have been earlier detailed in 
any formal announcement unless Smith 
meant to go out of his way to proclaim and 
brag about the adventure. We have seen 
that, as to the "Eelation," with its omis- 
sions and garblings, no jot of responsibility 
can attach to him for that publication, for 
what it contains or does not contain. 

His first published work is the so-called 
" Map and Description," issued in 1612, three 
years after his return from Virginia. This 
work is, as its title indicates, a description of 
the country and inhabitants, with the map, 
and is not a personal narrative. E'ext in 
order of publication were three books, mere 
pamphlets, on New England, published re- 
spectively, 1616, 1620, 1622. In one of 
these tracts is the first explicit statement — 
not a description — of the rescue by Pocahon- 



63 

tas. This statement is made in a passage 
discussing the mode of treatment and deal- 
ing with Indians, which he illustrates by 
his own experience with them. The state- 
ment is made naturally and without parade, 
and as reference to a fact well known to 
everybody acquainted with the history of 
Virginia affairs. Its importance for us in 
this discussion is that it is immediately pre- 
ceded by a paragraph that a man dealing in 
fiction — that is, lying — would never have 
dared to pen ; for in the paragraph preceding 
the statement, Smith refers to four men by 
name, one of whom, George Percy, had been 
Governor in Virginia, and to others not 
named, to whom he appeals as witnesses and 
authority for his statement. It may be added 
that Percy was, or afterwards became, hos- 
tile to Smith, and that he, as well as others, 
would have been quick to denounce any state- 
ment not true of such an adventure. 

The next publication, two years later, in 
1624, is the " History of Virginia," which 
contains the narrative and details of the res- 
cue, so familiar to us. The " History " is 
mainly a compilation of writings and nar- 
ratives of other men, edited by Smith, his 
own individual contribution being compara- 
tively but a small part of the book. Hence 



54 



many of the strictures aimed against Smith 
are criticisms of others, whose statements he 
has adopted. ' If he took this mode of pub- 
lishing in distrust of his own literary skill or 
ability to treat the subject at large, it yet 
secured the advantage of fortifying his views 
by the statements of other and independent 
witnesses. In editing and publishing under 
his own name he of course made himself re- 
sponsible for the whole, in which he weaves 
together the difierent narratives to make a 
consistent and continuous history. The in- 
terest and value of the book is not in its 
literary style, which is rugged and uncouth, 
often repellant to the merely literary reader. 
It may be said that the book was written 
before style, in the modern sense, was in- 
vented. It is the unpolished utterance of a 
man, or rather of men, not necessarily rude 
themselves, giving expression to what they 
knew and thought of a very serious piece of 
work in which they had been engaged; a 
piece of work of transcendent interest and 
importance, as we now know — namely, the 
founding of this Commonwealth of Virginia. 
The first comment on the *' History " to 
be made in this connection is to repeat, that 
if it had dealt in fiction — that is, lied — about 
this matter of the rescue, there were plenty of 



55 



men then living in England who knew as to 
its truth or falsity. Of these men, some had 
been in Virginia with Smith, or after him ; 
others had known and conversed with Poca- 
hontas in England. And of them some 
were his enemies, willing and eager enough 
to discredit him by denouncing any fictitious 
embellishments about that or any other 
matter in his book. An invention such 
as the Pocahontas story might have been 
risked in an obscure book, not liable to criti- 
cism and hostile scrutiny; but Smith's "His- 
tory of Virginia" was never obscure. From 
the first day of publication, it has been an 
illustrious book, whether from interest in its 
subject or in its author. It was brought out 
under auspices that at once gave it fame, and 
made its author's reputation a thing talked 
of by all men, and criticized by enemies, 
when criticism was possible. It was pub- 
lished at the very zenith of the most splendid 
development of English literature, when 
Shakspeare had been dead only eight years, 
and Ben Jonson was yet at the head of Eng- 
lish letters and criticism. It was written un- 
der the auspices of, and dedicated to, one of 
the most brilliant and celebrated women of 
her day, at a time when dedications were 



56 

significant, implying consent and patronage 
in the true sense of that word. 

It would be curious to know the history of 
Smith's acquaintance with this Duchess of 
Richmond, his patroness; this superb wo- 
man, whose ambition soared so high that she 
is said to have set her cap for the King him- 
self. Her husband had held high position 
in James' court, and she had doubtless 
known Pocahontas on the occasion of her 
visit to London and presentation at court. 
It is not improbable that her interest in 
Smith was first excited by hearing from Po- 
cahontas herself the story of the rescue. 
However that may be, it was through the 
influence of the Duchess, and at her request, 
that Smith compiled his " History," and to 
her he dedicated it in a preface that is a mas- 
terpiece of courtesy and compliment, that 
must have touched the pride of even so proud 
a woman as she. 

Of course she knew all about the incidents 
of Pocahontas' visit to England and presen- 
tation to the Queen, only eight years before ; 
of course, as being familiar with the court, 
she knew about Smith's letter bespeaking the 
Queen's consideration for Pocahontas on the 
ground of having saved his life, of which 



57 



mention has been made. And yet we are 
asked to believe that Smith not only invented 
the story of the rescue, but had the daring 
impudence to bolster up that story by forging 
and printing in his ^' History " a purported 
letter to the Queen ; not only that, but also 
had the reckless folly to refer explicitly to 
the rescue in a preface dedicating his book 
to the cleverest and most powerful woman 
in England, who most probably had personal 
information from Pocahontas herself about 
the incidents of Smith's experience in Vir- 
ginia. The Duchess of Richmond would 
have made her lackies cudgel any man who 
would dare to put in a book dedicated to 
her, fantastic lies about an Indian princess 
whom she had probably known. 

As already said, there were plenty of men, 
then living, willing enough to discredit Smith 
on this or any other matter, if such stricture 
were possible. Of these would-be critics, 
some were members of the London Com- 
pany, men of wealth and position, upon whom 
the comments of the book tended to throw 
contempt, while sometimes excusing their 
blunders on the half-pitying ground of igno- 
rance. These men, embittered by heavy 
losses in their Virginia enterprise, would 
have been prompted by the average human 



58 

nature to vindicate their consistency. For 
fifteen years they had discredited Smith, 
rejecting all his plans and offers, and refusing 
him employment in their Virginia enterprise. 
The publication of his book, with its stric- 
tures on their policies and plans, did not, 
we may be sure, lessen their feeling against 
its author — this upstart captain, as they 
probably regarded him, with his title and 
dubious coat of arms from some half-bar- 
barous prince of Southeastern Europe. They 
had kicked him out of their service, but he 
had ingratiated himself into the favor of the 
proudest woman in England and her asso- 
ciates, and now, under such splendid aus- 
pices, he showed the world his side of the 
question, illustrated and emphasized by the 
fact that their policy had resulted in utter 
and ruinous bankruptcy. With the enmity 
natural under such circumstances, they would 
have been quick to denounce the author 
for any manufactured item about the most 
striking incident of the whole book. The 
exposure of any such falsehood as the Poca- 
hontas rescue — and most certainly it would 
have been exposed, if false — would at once 
have overwhelmed book and author with 
merited contempt. 

Contrast the history of this book with that 



59 

of the so-called '' Relation/' on which the 
modern criticism bases its attacks on Smith's 
veracity; which, after serving its purpose, 
whatever that was, passed into such dusty 
oblivion. The "History " has always ranked 
among the first and highest authorities on its 
subject. Its statements of matters of fact 
have never been successfully combated, and 
on points of controversy its author has been 
vindicated by the experience of succeeding 
generations, who found the wisdom of adopt- 
ing policies substantially in conformity with 
his plans and ideas. 

And now, having stated the character of 
the "History," and indicated Smith's stand- 
ing and relations at the time of its publi- 
cation, when his work was, if not a refu- 
tation then certainly a challenge to his ene- 
mies and critics, we may cite a brief pas- 
sage from its closing words, in which he 
refers to that relation with contempt that 
must have made some galled jade wince. In 
describing the "Relation," it was said that 
Smith utterly ignored it when compiling his 
"History." But on the last page of his 
work he refers to it and his critics in such 
words as these : 

" Thus far have I travelled in this wilder- " 
" ness of Virginia, not being ignorant that " 



60 

"for all my pains this discourse will be" 
" wrested, tossed, and turned as many ways " 
" as there are leaves ; that I have writ too " 
" much of some, too little of others, and " 
"many such objections. To such I must" 
" answer — if any have concealed their " 
"approved experiences from my knowl-" 
" edge — they must excuse me. As for " 
" every fatherless or stolen relation" — wasn't 
it fatherless, and doesn't its initialed edi- 
tor, J. H., admit in his preface that it was 
practically stolen? — "as for every father-" 
"less or stolen relation, or whole volumes" 
" of sophisticated rehearsals, I leave them " 
" to the charge of them that desire them. " 
" I thank God I never undertook anything " 
" yet wherein any could tax me with care- " 
" lessness or dishonesty, and what is he to " 
" whom I am troublesome or indebted ?" 

Verily, as old Dibden says of him, " Smith 
was the very dragon of his breed. Nil actum 
credens, si quid superesset agendum,^' which is 
the Latin way of saying he never thought a 
job done until it was finished. 

It may be said that no book stufied with 
bragging and lies could have such long and 
illustrious esteem as has been given to 
Smith's " History," or could have been im- 
posed without detection on his own and 



61 

subsequent generations. In Virginia, Smith's 
"History" has been standard reading for 
two hundred and fifty years, acknowledged 
and practically unquestioned, unless by some 
in these later days. We may be a simple 
and uncritical folk, but when our belief and 
judgment as to a historical character are 
challenged, and we are told that our admira- 
tion has been wasted on a charlatan, whose 
boasting has deceived us, then may we raise 
a question as to the amount of wisdom behind 
the critic's utterance, and oppose to his opin- 
ion the judgment of men acknowledged as 
authority on any matter of history or charac- 
ter to which their minds have been turned. 
We could cite such j udgments about Smith by 
the score, but will be content with only two, 
.those of Mr. JefiTerson and Judge Marshall. 
As unlike Smith in disposition and habits 
of life as a man could be, yet so critical a 
scholar as Mr. Jefferson wrote of him that 
/^"to his efforts principally may be ascribed 
the support of the colony against the oppo- 
sition of the natives; that he was honest, sen- 
sible, and well-informed, though his style is 
barbarous and uncouth.'J And Judge Mar- 
shall, in his "History of the Colonies," 
adopts without question Smith's narrative of 
the Pocahontas rescue, and speaks of him in 



62 



language that shows his admiration for his 
*^ judgment, courage, and presence of mind," 
with highest appreciation of his talents and 
character. 

It does seem preposterous that a literary 
and personal charlatan could deceive the 
judgment of Jefferson and Marshall, and 
remain to be detected by the criticisms of the 
Deanes, ISTeills, Adams, and Warners. Criti- 
cism ! we need and welcome criticism, intel- 
ligently applied to our early history, based 
on a solid foundation of truth and facts, and 
enlightened with some insight into human 
nature. But much of this criticism of Smith 
is of the school that denounces Christopher 
Columbus as a piratical knave who blun- 
dered into the discovery of America; and 
one of whose latest utterances is that George 
Washington " was an illiterate Virginia colo- 
nel, who spelt worse than a common soldier." 

And yet they tell us, " the legend must 
go"; but when it goes — if you will pardon 
the quotation of the Professor's slang — it will 
be time for this people to be gone; to be 
driven from this fair portion of God's earth, 
made sacred by that brave man's heroism, 
and by the gentle pity of that Indian maid, 
savage though she was. 

This lecture has been confined to an in- 



63 

qulry as to the truth ot the Pocahontas res- 
cue, wanting time for more than reference 
to, and brief touches on, such other points 
as seemed necessary for the discussion. In 
examining the charge of the critics against 
Smith's veracity, founded on the variation 
between the earlier " Relation " and his own 
account in his " History," the proof seems 
conclusive against the authority of that 
fatherless pamphlet, as any ground whereon 
to impeach the truth of the later and authen- 
tic narrative of his "History." 

What has been said in vindication of his 
truthfulness may also suggest the character 
of the man as shown in his deeds. How- 
ever we may judge these deeds, or the man 
generally, yet our common experience and 
the testimony of history is to the effect that 
men like Smith do not lie. They may have 
a streak of vanity, or what looks like it, and 
may be so headstrong in convictions as to 
incur the charge of being conceited, but they 
do not lie. 

The captivity and rescue were in the win- 
ter of 1607-'08. We cannot now recite the 
history of Smith's subsequent life in Vir- 
ginia, but must note that most remarkable 
feat of surveying ever done on this conti-^ 
nent, the survey of Chesapeake bay and the 



64 

map of the country. This work was accom- 
plished in an open boat, with rude instru- 
ments, and with a half mutinous crew grum- 
bling at the exposure and hardships of the 
trip. In spite of all disadvantages, Smith 
made a map that is a marvel of skill and 
accuracy, and the foundation of all Virginia 
cartography. 

His life in Virginia covered a period of 
only two and a half years, his stay here 
being terminated by severe wounding from 
an accidental explosion of gunpowder, which 
compelled him to return to England for 
medical treatment. There is some report 
of his being sent home to answer charges 
preferred against him. What they were, if 
any, we do not know ; but there were doubt- 
less complaints against a man who had not 
much patience with idleness and vice, and 
who could be very disagreeble to sluggards 
and cowards in forcing them to take their 
share of labor and danger which he did not 
shirk himself. Short as was his stay here, 
is there another example of a like influence 
being stamped in such brief period on the 
history of a great commonwealth ? 

Elected Governor in 1608, his skill and 
energy were employed in putting the affairs 
of the colony on as good footing as prac- 



(15 



ticable under difHciilt circumstances, and 
attempting to realize the expectations and 
demands of the home Company; which being 
impossible of attainment, as Smith well 
knew, he was persistent in urging on them 
a policy which kept him in controversy 
with, and opposition to, the London patrons. 
On behalf of the London Company, we 
must remember that they had sent the col- 
ony as a commercial enterprise, and, as busi- 
ness men, they were disappointed and dis- 
gusted that no return tor their venture was 
visible; but what chance was there for 
profitable trade with savage Indians ? And 
we know now that no gold is to be found in 
Tidewater Virginia, and that the South sea, 
or Pacific ocean, one object of the expedi- 
tion, is three thousand miles overland from 
Jamestown. This stricture on the unreason- 
able demands of the Company, as we now 
know them to have been, represents very 
nearly the views and idea of the situation 
taken by Smith at the time. Li response to 
their complaints about the poor prospect be- 
fore them, coupled with threats to leave the 
colonists to themselves unless the next ship 
brought gold or news of the route to the 
South sea. Smith sent a letter creditable to 
his wisdom and manly independence, but at 



fi6 

the same time evidence of* bow lacking such 
a character may be in mere worldly sense 
and policy. Tbink of a company's agent — 
for such only was the President or Gover- 
nor — writing to his official board in language 
that criticises their plans, and the expecta- 
tions founded on them, as foolish and delu- 
sive, ridicules some of their schemes, and 
asks them to send thirty carpenters, black- 
smiths, and such workmen, rather than a 
thousand of such as had been sent, and con- 
cludes by telling them that they cannot yet 
look for any profitable returns. 

It is small wonder that such a president, 
or agent, was involved in controversy, and 
that his employers in England failed to ap- 
preciate a wisdom tliat was a reflection on, 
and contradiction of, their ideas of manage- 
ment. Controversy ! Yes, the man's life 
was a controversy for the next twenty years 
that has sometimes brought on him the re 
proach of having quarrelled with everybody. 
But we think it could be shown that it was 
the controversy of a man who saw and knew 
and urged the right thing to be done, and 
whose every word of controversy was not 
only a protest against fatal and costly errors 
of judgment, but also that it carried and 
urged advice, which, if followed, might have 



07 

saved the London Company from the utter 
bankruptcy in which it collapsed in less than 
twenty years. His was the controversy of 
the man with some foresight of the vast future 
possibilities of what we are now proud to call 
American civilization, whose history had no 
chance to begin till methods ^vere adopted 
in consonance with what Smith had advised 
and urged. " Pardon me," he writes after 
the massacre in 1622, '' pardon me, though 
it passionate me beyond the bounds of mod- 
esty to have been sufficiently able to foresee 
these miseries and had neither power nor 
means to prevent it." (A. 770). 

But what could one man, unskilled in arts 
of controversy, whose soldier nature dis- 
dained cunning and devious w^ays of policy ; 
what could one man, without fortune or ex- 
traneous influence, do as against the views 
and designs of a board of managers three 
thousand miles away, armed though he was 
with the knowledge and experience essential 
for the successful prosecution of the enter- 
prise in hand. What has ever accomplished 
anything against British obstinacy and fatu- 
ousness in American aiFairs, unless it were 
a N'athaniel Bacon, some fifty years after 
Smith, with an armed colony at his back, or 



C8 



George Wiislnngton, a century after Bacon, 
at the head of a Revolutionarj^ arm3^ 

To state very briefly Smith's side of the 
controversy, the policy proposed by him 
looked, in the first place, to control of the 
Indians, whose subjugation was the first re- 
quisite for peaceful living in the country. If 
white men were to live here at all, there was 
choice of only two alternatives; either to 
assimilate with and civilize the natives, or 
to conquer and control them. Englishmen 
might try to civilize Indians, but they never 
would assimilate, nor could they make In- 
dians assimilate with them ; hence the only 
practical plan, as proved by all subsequent 
history, was to conquer and control them. 
But the colonists found themselves restrained 
and hampered from the first by the London 
Company's orders for a peace policy toward 
the natives. However well intended, all ex- 
perience has shown that such policy is utterly 
futile; for it takes two parties to keep peace, 
and the American Indian has never yet 
reconciled himself to it on his side. The 
later establishment of Rangers on our fron- 
tiers, and the subsequent establishment and 
use of the United States army, whose almost 
sole reason for existence has been to control 



69 



Indians, were but the adoption of plans 
and policy urojed from the first by Smith. 
After the neglect of his advice had been ex- 
emplified and its penalt}- so fearfully paid by 
the massacre of 1622, he again renewed the 
offers repeatedly urged before. He proposed 
that the London Company should give him 
a hundred soldiers and thirty sailors, with 
whom he would force the savages to leave 
the country or bring them into such fear and 
subjection as to ensure peace and security 
for the settlers. These soldiers he would 
employ in ranging the country and con- 
trolling the savages, while he would estab- 
lish forts and garrisons, ready always for 
defense of the country, and as posts of mil- 
itary instruction for the colonists; which 
plan is almost exactly the Indian policy 
subsequently adopted by these United States, 
and the only one that has ever been effec- 
tive in dealing with savages. Fearing that 
it might entail more than the small ex- 
pense necessary in Smith's judgment, the 
offer was declined ; and so matters drifted 
on till the trouble again became acute in 
Bacon's time, who is dubbed the Rebel for 
daring to take arms and incite his fellow- 
colonists to band themselves for self-defense 
against the common danger; and so on 



70 

through generations, until the protests 
against the narrow views of hoards and par- 
liaments three thousand miles away, culmi- 
nated in a Revolutionary Avar and these inde- 
pendent United States; which result was 
but the logical outcome, after long course of 
time, of the protest and controversy first 
stated and urged by this plain soldier, Cap- 
tain John Smith. 

Again — gold, silver, and a route to the 
South sea, were the reiterated demands of the 
Company. We must remember that this was 
in the early seventeenth century, when Eng- 
lish colonization was in its infancy. There 
was no previous experience to guide them ; 
no precedents but what they knew of Spanish 
conquests and settlements, which had yielded 
immense treasures of gold and silver to that 
country ; while the Pacific, or South sea, had 
opened to them the route to the boundless 
wealth of the Indies. Therefore it was not 
an unnatural expectation of the Company in 
England that some such success should crown 
this expedition to Virginia, of which country 
they were more ignorant than we now are 
of Central Africa. Their disappointment 
vented itself in criticisms and complaints of 
the management here, and so exasperated 
were they at the failure to realize their ex- 



n 

pectations, that, as in the letter referred to 
awhile ago, they threatened to leave the 
colonists to their fate unless the next ships 
brought gold or news of the route to the 
South sea. We have seen how Smith an- 
swered that letter, but we cannot now go 
into the grounds and reasons of his telling 
the Company that they could not yet expect 
returns for their investment; nor state his 
arguments against this futile and insane thirst 
for gold. It must suffice now to say that the 
controversy was warm and protracted, and 
that after Smith's return to England the 
Compan}^ refused him further employment. 

The verdict of history has been pronounced 
on the results of that controversy, and the 
defenders of Captain John Smitli think that 
the verdict has vindicated him and his policy. 
In twenty years the Company had gone into- 
bankruptcy, and its charter was annulled. 

Was Smith a great man ? Or rather, what 
is the measure of his greatness? As the 
world generally answers that question ac- 
cording to the degree of success achieved in 
lile, it might be said that his life was not a 
success, inasmuch as he failed to achieve the 
objects for which he was striving. Com- 
pelled by the accident of a wound to leave 
Virginia, after a stay of two and a half years. 



72 

he never returued, buL bpeut the best days 
of his life in seemingl}^ futile efforts to im- 
press on others his plans and convictions as 
to the policy requisite for prosperity in this 
and other colonies. This want of success 
was probably due to a lack of personal ad- 
dress and politic art in dealing with men 
whose modes of thought and ways of looking 
at the question at issue were very different 
from those of a man of his training and habits 
of mind. Probably the very qualities that 
made him pre-eminent as a leader of men in 
emergencies demanding prompt and resolute 
action, unfitted him for the role of the advo- 
cate and pleader which was needed to con- 
vince the London merchants and patrons of 
the futility of their management, and to per- 
suade them of the .wisdom of his views, 
founded as these views were, on practical 
knowledge of the situation, derived from his 
personal experience. At any rate, he failed 
to convince them or to find means to carry 
out his plans. This failure must have brought 
him days and years of the bitterness of disap- 
pointed hopes and plans, of which, however, 
but little is reflected in his books. 

But, despite the fact of his brief stay here, 
and despite the seeming failure of his after 
life, how almost marvellous is the influence 



73 

of his name and fame, and how it has sur- 
vived and permeated Virginia and American 
history. And this fame cannot be said to 
be literary, for few men read Smith's " His- 
tory " ; but it has established itself as a tradi- 
tion in the popular mind more lasting and 
potent than any written page or printed 
book. 

What is the secret of this supremacy, and 
the homage paid his memory through all 
these generations? It may be questioned 
whether it is due only to the hero of the ad- 
venture through which his name is most 
familiarly known. Is it not also an uncon- 
scious tribute to the man who first sounded 
the keynote of Virginia history, to which it 
has remained true in all subsequent chapters? 
Virginia history is almost written in the lives 
of five or six men, whose life-periods nearly 
lap ; and the keynote of this history is the 
protest against ''prerogative,'' and the asser- 
tion of the rights of self-government. The 
lives of Washington and Lee, the last of our 
great protagonists, embody the struggles of a 
mature and well-organized commonwealth 
in defense of the principles and rights asserted 
in the infant state of the same community 
by Smith and Bacon. For though not formu- 
lated as in later times, when the mature con- 



74 



sciousness of a well-developed communit}^ 
could express itself, and stamp upon the page 
of history the definite assertion of their 
rights, yet the inspiration and motive of 
Smith and Bacon were essentially the same 
as those of their later and logical successors. 
Their earlier deeds laid the foundation on 
which later generations huilded ; their asser- 
tions of rights marked the path and blazed 
the way along which our subsequent history 
has moved. 

This fact makes the consistency and essen- 
tial unity of Virginia history, and has kept 
the character of Virginia civilization much 
the same through all chances and changes ; 
and perhaps it explains the lasting interest 
in, and pervasive influence of, the first of 
our great heroes, and gives to John Smith 
the honored title of Father of Virginia. 



LBA'g'09 






Captain John Smith 
and his Critics. 



Chas. PoIN'DEXTER, 

Acting Librarian Virginia State Library, 

1893. 



Compliments of 



4.> 



